In Referees We Trust?: How Peer Review Became a Mark of Scientific Legitimacy

The origins of the modern peer review system at both scientific journals and funding bodies—and how young peer review as a practice actually is.

In Referees We Trust? investigates the origins of the peer review system, a system that is often considered the essential mechanism that protects the trustworthiness of scientific research. Melinda Baldwin traces the first refereeing systems to journals affiliated with scientific societies in the early nineteenth century and follows refereeing as it...